


Some Kind of Path

by burglebezzlement



Series: Mordelia & Priya [2]
Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Gardens & Gardening, Gen, M/M, alarm clocks, failed romantic gestures, houses, landscape architecture, object-linked magic, wing problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 03:41:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5990593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burglebezzlement/pseuds/burglebezzlement
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s summer hols, and Mordelia Grimm is staying in London — someone has to charm Simon Snow’s wings and tail invisible in the morning, with Baz away on business and Penny visiting Micah. Meanwhile, Baz has been working on a surprise for Simon, and Simon’s increasingly frustrated with having wings.</p><p>Stand-alone story set several years after <em>A Week in the Country</em>.</p><p>
  <em>The first time I Simon-sat, I didn’t cast a strong enough charm and his wings showed up when he was walking back to the flat. Penny made Priya and me watch Star Wars with her five times through, until I could cast the charm properly.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Kind of Path

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the lyrics of Nick Cave's Into My Arms.

“MORDELIA.”

I open one eye. Simon Snow is standing in front of me.

“I know you’re awake,” he says. “Mordelia, I’m about to be late for a very important meeting.”

 _But the couch is so comfortable,_ I think, stretching without opening my other eye.

“Mordelia! Get up!”

 _Fine._

I open both eyes. He’s standing in front of me, and he’s angry — his wings are vibrating, and his tail is lashing back and forth.

I sit up, rubbing my eyes. “Why are you in such a hurry?”

“I have an hour of traffic to sit through before I get to my meeting,” he says. “Probably more. It’s our first meeting with Lady Monica and she’s going to be raging if we’re late.”

“Lady Monica?” I look around for my wand. It’s not where I left it.

“Listen, I’m happy to tell you all of this tonight,” Simon says. “Just get my wings off and you can go back to sleeping and abusing our Netflix account.”

Actually, I’ve mostly been abusing their internet connection, and reading through Baz’s collection of _very _banned Magickal books, but I don’t see any reason to tell my brother’s live-in boyfriend that. “Fine.”__

I rub my eyes again and start running my hands under the couch. The wand can’t have gotten far, right?

“Mordelia, if you don’t remove my wings in the next thirty seconds, I’m calling Priya.”

I crouch down to look under the couch. “She’s my roommate. She won’t do anything I tell her not to.”

“Wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Simon mutters.

“Please. I’m her roommate. I can make her life hell, and she knows it.” Not that I ever would. But it’s nice to have my abilities respected.

“Not with the Anathema in place.” Simon’s shifting from foot to foot like one of my little brothers when they need to pee. 

“There are ways to get around that,” I inform him, moving down to look under the end tables. Ah! My wand. It must have rolled.

“There _aren’t_ ,” Simon says. “If there were ways to get around the Anathema, I think Baz and I would have figured them out.”

“Just because you and Baz aren’t very creative is no reason to doubt my abilities.” I straighten up, wand in hand. “Now, do you want to get to visit your Lady Whatever?”

He narrows his eyes, and then turns around. “Yes.”

“What’s the magic word?”

Simon just growls. 

“Fine,” I say, raising my wand. “ _ **These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.**_ ”

Simon’s off before his wings have even fully disappeared. “Thank you. Back at seven!”

And then the door’s slamming, and I’m alone in the flat. And awake. At seven-thirty in the bloody morning.

I stumble back to the couch, and fall face-foward onto it. Maybe I can go back to sleep.

* * *

I’m staying at the flat because Baz is off on a business trip. Another one. He’s been on about eight business trips this summer.

Normally Penny, their roommate, would cover this, but Penny is off in America right now, visiting Micah’s family. 

This is how I ended up Simon-sitting. Someone with magic needs to be there each morning to cast the spells to hide his wings and his tail. 

I’m still sleeping on the couch, even though Penny’s not here. Penny’s sister Priya is my roommate at Watford, and she’s told me a little too much about Penny and Micah and their love life for me to want to sleep in their bed.

Anyway, the couch is fine. London is fine. It’s nice to be away from the family for a bit. And it’s nice to spend time with Baz, even if it’s only a little bit on either end of his business trips. We never see him at the house these days.

I spend the morning reading through a couple more of Baz’s books. One is on object-linked magic and the other is on Dark creatures. The creature book is so old, most of the creatures it describes are already extinct. 

I’ve been reading a lot about object-linked magic lately. Baz doesn’t have enough books on the topic, though, and I’ve already gone through everything we’ve got at home. So I call Priya, and head over to Hounslow, to raid her father’s library.

* * *

Baz’s job is something in the City — he’s explained it to me before but when he hits the words “Magickal derivatives and secondary risk markets” my eyes glaze over. _Everyone’s_ eyes glaze over. It’s like a boredom spell you can cast without magic!

He seems to like it, though, and Father’s very proud.

Simon Snow, who was raised at children’s homes in crappy industrial cities and probably didn’t see any garden larger than a city park until he arrived at Watford, has become a landscape gardener. Not even a Magickal landscape gardener. He works for a firm in London, _Normal_ London, and drives all over to look at people’s gardens and draw up plans for them. 

Simon doesn’t just like his job, like Baz does. Simon absolutely loves his job. But it does mean meetings, in person, and walking through gardens… which means someone needs to be around to charm away his wings and tail. 

Simon-sitting.

He hates it when I call it that.

* * *

Simon gets back that evening at the usual time. He’s loaded down with bags from Tesco.

I’m on the couch, reading one of the books from Priya’s dad’s library. (He won’t notice… and anyway, I’ll return it eventually. He doesn’t work with object-based magic, so it’s not like he’ll go looking for it. Or for the other two books I liberated from his library.)

I look up when Simon comes in the door. His wings are still invisible — _good_. The first time I Simon-sat, I didn’t cast a strong enough charm and his wings showed up when he was walking back to the flat. Penny made Priya and me watch Star Wars with her five times through, until I could cast the charm properly.

I set my book aside, but I don’t get up from the couch. “Do you need help putting that away?”

“You’re more helpful in the evening,” Simon mutters. “No, I’m fine.”

“I can help,” I say, getting up from the couch.

Simon shakes his head and pulls the bags away from me. “No, keep reading.”

I shrug. “Fine. What’s for dinner?”

“I notice you’re not offering to cook.” Simon sorts through the bags and puts several of them in his and Baz’s room before heading to the kitchen with the rest.

“I could offer."

“You could offer to cook. But could you actually cook?” He’s sorting the milk and butter and things into the fridge. Simon Snow consumes an enormous quantity of dairy products. He’s a one-man Milk Products Marketing Board.

“I think I could manage putting a readymade lasagna in the oven.”

Simon starts unloading things into the cupboard. “You’re in luck if you want lasagna,” he says. “I’ve got ravioli. And cheese.”

It’s probably cheese ravioli, and then he’ll put more cheese on top. Simon’s a terrible cook. His idea of a balanced meal is an enormous pan of prepared macaroni cheese (also with more cheese on) and a loaf of bread with cold butter. 

“Did you get any salad? Or vegetables?”

He holds up a bottle of tomato sauce. “I got this, does this count?”

“You know it doesn’t,” I say, and give up on my book. Maybe there’s still salad stuff from when Baz and I went shopping at the weekend.

* * *

The next morning, I wake up to the sound of something buzzing on the table next to me.

I put my hand out to grab it without opening my eyes. It’s plastic. It seems to have buttons, but it starts chirping when I try to find the right button to stop it.

I throw it against the bookshelves on the opposite wall, but I haven’t killed it — instead it starts singing. And then it starts talking about the weather.

Clearly this isn’t going away. I shake my head and then open my eyes.

It’s not one alarm clock — it’s three. The tiny plastic one is in pieces on the floor, and there’s a buzzing one under the couch, and then one on the bookshelves across the room which has the radio going, some obnoxious set of radio personalities talking about the weather. (Hot. Apparently.)

I drag myself off my couch and manage to fumble my way into switching off the radio clock and unplugging the one buzzing from under the bed.

I’m almost asleep when the next one goes off. It’s another radio clock, but set to a different station, and it’s not on the bookshelves or anywhere. I try to ignore it, but it’s set too loud.

Simon comes out of the bathroom, toweling off his hair. “Morning, Mordelia!”

“I’m going to kill you,” I groan. Just then, more electronic chirping starts up from across the room. 

Simon grins at me. “If you take care of my wings now, I’ll tell you where I hid the radio.”

I stare at him. “No.”

“Fine,” he says, tossing his towel on the floor. (Baz hates when he does that.) “I’m getting dressed.”

I backtrack, find my wand, and use a finding spell to track down and neutralize the radio alarm clock. But by then I’ve got another clock chirping, just off in timing from the earlier one, so they sync up, and then separate out, and then chirp opposite one another, and then —

“ ** _Shut up_** ,” I cast, waving my wand at the room. 

There’s silence. I’ve gotten both of the little chirpy clocks. I sit back down on the couch, wand in my hand, feeling triumphant.

And then another clock starts buzzing from one of the kitchen cupboards.

Simon comes out of their room as I’m disabling it. He’s got his work gear on, heavy boots and heavy trousers and a sturdy shirt. (Baz had his tailor work up some shirts that wouldn’t be too uncomfortable with the wings. Even with the spells on, Simon says he can still feel them.)

“Alright, Mordelia?”

“You bloody _bastard_.”

Simon smiles, again. He’s having far too much fun with this. “I thought you could use a hand waking up,” he says.

“What if I refused to spell your wings off?”

“That’s the best bit,” Simon says. “I’m at an abandoned estate surveying plants all day, so it doesn’t really matter… although of course, if you’d like the practice…..”

“Fine,” I say, and charm away his wings and tail for another day. The truth is, you can never tell when someone might come along and ask why a landscape architect is doing a plant survey with wings on. 

He does need me. 

I flop down on the couch to watch him go. It’s Friday. Baz will be back tonight, and then I’ll probably go home. Maybe.

The truth is, I wish I could spend more time here while Baz was in — it’s always lovely when he has trips on Friday _and_ Monday and we can spend a bit of the weekend together. (Simon’s fine, when he’s not being a prat, but he’s not my big brother. Not really. That’s Baz.)

I try to move my pillow into a more comfortable position. “Simon?”

“Yeah?”

“How many more alarm clocks are there?”

Simon grins. “I think it’s more fun if you find that out for yourself.”

* * *

Baz gets home before Simon that evening. He’s got an enormous bag of dirty laundry and he looks grayer than usual, absolutely done in, but he’s back at the flat.

I want to jump off the couch and hug him, but I’m too old for that and anyway it’s not the sort of thing Baz likes. (But I let myself look up from my book.)

“How did you get on?” he asks. He’s got carrier bags — he never trusts Simon to get proper groceries. (Sensible of him.)

“Your Chosen One set eighteen alarm clocks on me,” I say, from the couch. 

Actually it was only eight. But eighteen sounds much more in line with the level of horror visited on me. At least three of the little battery clocks had double alarms set. One of the radio alarm clocks had a battery backup _and_ two different alarms set. It took me ten minutes to work out how to shut it off the second time, and I had almost started thinking it was cursed by the time I worked out that it must have a battery as well as the cord.

Baz raises an eyebrow. Just one. “What did you do to piss him off?”

“Nothing,” I say. (Yes, I know, untrue, but Baz is my big brother and I can lie to him if I want to.)

Baz starts poking around in the refrigerator. “Did he feed himself anything other than pasta and cheese?”

“No,” I say, “and I’m starving. Can we get curry?”

“Once Simon gets back.” Baz lets the fridge door shut and starts picking towels up off the floor for the laundry.

When Simon gets back, he’s covered in mud and dead leaves, and Baz sends him in to shower before we can go get takeaway. 

We’re back at the flat with our food before Simon asks. It’s the question he’s been asking at the end of all of Baz’s trips. “When do you go away again? Should Mordelia go home this weekend?”

Baz smiles — a real smile. I don’t see him do that very often. None of us do, except maybe Simon. “I’m not going away again for a while,” he says. “We finally got that project sorted. And if you’re not working tomorrow, there’s something I’d like to show you.”

Simon looks confused. “Tomorrow’s Saturday, Baz.”

“So?” Baz looks down at his curry. “You’ve worked three of the past four Saturdays.”

“Only because you were traveling,” Simon says, but then he looks over at me. “Right, sorry. Of course I’m not working. What do you want to show me?”

“It’s a surprise,” Baz says. And that’s all he’s willing to say on the topic. To either of us.

* * *

The next morning, Simon gets up early and wakes me up with the smell of cooking bacon and sausages and fried tomatoes and toast. (His terrible cooking is less objectionable at breakfast.)

Simon eats most of the breakfast. I have toast and fried tomato, and Baz has a tumbler of blood. He buys it from the butcher down the street, who thinks he makes a lot of blood sausage and has started asking for samples. (Priya and I looked into making it, but it turns out it’s hard and you need special refrigeration. Boring.)

Baz still isn’t telling us where we’re going.

It’s a lovely day out — warm, but not too warm. Baz is borrowing the MG. (His Aunt Fiona is still in Prague, and about a year ago, she finally admitted that she’s not coming back any time soon, and told Baz to start driving the MG. She’d be furious if she knew how often he was driving it before.)

Baz spells Simon’s wings, and we’re off, through the weekend traffic on the motorways, driving out into the country.

I expect Baz to drive me home first — I’ve packed all my things, including several additional books I’m liberating from his library. (Only on a temporary basis. Unless the books are good.) 

But instead, Baz starts turning onto smaller roadways.

We’re not even properly out of London’s outskirts, really, but things are getting posher and starting to look like the country. Like the sort of places where Baz and I grew up. Mostly we’re smelling the MG’s exhaust, but it _looks_ like the sort of place that smells like new-mown hay and flowers.

Baz turns down smaller and smaller roads, and then we’re bumping down a dirt road surrounded by small fields with horses in them.

And then he pulls up in front of a cottage.

I guess it’s properly a house, but it’s the sort of place our father would call a cottage. It’s two stories, made of gray stone, and covered over in ivy and weeds. The first-floor windows are hidden behind bushes that think they’re trees. 

Baz gets out of the car, and then stands in front of it. “Well? What do you think?”

Me, I think it’s being eaten alive by the garden, but I know Baz is asking Simon.

Simon gets out of the car slowly. If we could see his wings, they’d be starting to unfurl. “It’s a house, Baz. Why are we here?”

“Because it’s our house,” Baz says, and he looks — excited? I think he looks excited. He’s my brother, but he’s bloody hard to read sometimes.

Simon looks as confused as I am. “Can you spell this out for me, Baz?”

“Penny’s moving back,” Baz says. “And she’s bringing Micah with her, and you know she’s going to propose to him, and the flat’s getting so small… we needed a new place. So I’ve been looking, just casually, you know, and then this opened up and it was perfect — you can be outside in the garden all day and nobody would ever see your wings. And it’s commuting distance to London!”

Simon’s still holding himself back, not leaving the shelter of the car door. “Is this where you’ve been on all of your business trips? Looking for a house without me?”

“What? No!” Baz takes a step back, closer to the house. “Simon, we’re not that far out of London. Why would I need to stay overnight to look for houses here?”

“I’m not sure why you need the business trips at all,” Simon says. 

He’s working himself up to be really angry about this. And I’m not sure why.

I slip out of the car, leaving the door open behind me, and circle behind Baz. He and Simon are just going to keep arguing. I may as well look inside. 

The front steps are built of brick. The mortar is cracked and the steps are uneven under my feet. The door to the house isn’t open, but a quick **Open Sesame** takes care of that. (If they really are going to live here, they’re going to need to improve the security.)

Inside, the house smells of damp. It’s silent. The sunlight is dim through spiderweb-covered windows. The front rooms are papered in old, mildewing paper.

The kitchen’s at the back of the house — it looks like an addition. It’s got an eating nook, with wide windows looking out over the garden.

I find the stairs — they’re wood, and in spite of the obvious age of the house, they feel solid under my feet as I walk upstairs. There’s four bedrooms, all small and papered in faded pastels, and a small bathroom with a floor with cracked hexagonal tiles. 

It’s not a sad house, even though it’s obviously been abandoned for some time. It seems like it could be nice.

I wipe off one of the front bedroom windows with my hand, and then wipe my hand on my jeans. (Disgustingly dirty.) Outside, Baz is slumped against the MG and Simon’s nowhere to be seen.

I run down the stairs and out the front door. “Baz? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Baz is scowling. “Snow needed a moment.”

He doesn’t point, but his glare is obviously towards the fields behind the house, so I shrug and start walking off in that direction. The paths are overgrown and plants catch at my jeans and my shoes as I walk.

There’s a small stream at the bottom of the field, and Simon’s sitting beside it, on a large rock, throwing pebbles in and watching the ripples.

He looks up when he hears me. “How angry is he?”

There isn’t room for me on the rock, so I lean back against a fencepost. “He’s _angsty_.”

Simon stares off into the distance. “Yeah.”

It’s quiet. The silence is broken only by the splash from the stream when Simon throws in another pebble. 

It’s a lovely place, if you like being outdoors — the overgrown gardens at the house have been mowed down here, and there’s a view across the fields toward a village. It smells like growing things and sunshine. 

“Do you hate the house?” I say, finally.

Simon hurls another pebble into the stream. “I _love_ the house. It’s exactly the sort of house and garden I’ve had chosen if I’d known what Baz was bloody up to.”

I stare at him. “I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic.”

Simon looks toward me. “I’m not,” he says, his voice softer now. “I mean it. The house….” He sighs. “The house is perfect. It’s the implied lifestyle that gets to me.”

I reach down and pick up a pebble and turn it over in my hand. ”I don’t know what that means.”

“It’s —“ He sighs again. “None of you understand how trapped I am.”

“By Baz?”

Simon’s wings are still hidden by the spell, but I can feel when he opens them. He starts flapping them, sending a breeze in my direction. He doesn’t lift off the rock; his wings aren’t large enough for that. (Baz says Simon could only fly on his wings with magic.)

“It’s these,” Simon says. “The wings. I’m trapped at the flat until you or Penny or Baz hides them for me. Sometimes it feels like a jail.”

We sit in silence, staring off at the fields, and I think about it. He’s not wrong. He is trapped. Now I feel guilty about sleeping in, about making Simon haul me out of bed. (Out of the couch, anyway.)

“I didn’t realize,” I say, finally.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t want any of you to realize.” Simon stares down at the stream, and the fields beyond. “But… being here. It would be a bigger jail. That’s all.”

He throws a larger stone into the stream, and it lands with a kerplunk.

* * *

When we get back to the flat, Simon says he’s going for a run. Alone. He changes into trackie bottoms and a Watford t-shirt and asks me to charm away his wings, which is completely unnecessary, because they’re still hidden and will be for hours. He’s just trying to get at Baz.

I call Mum on my mobile to let her know I’m staying a few more days. She won’t mind. My brothers and sisters have a nanny, and they’re all busy with the Summer Programme, a complicated summer schedule of enrichment activities and reading and swimming lessons that Mum and the nanny work out every year.

Simon’s little wing problem gets me out of the Summer Programme. Another reason to sort things out between him and Baz.

My jeans are disgusting, from the dirt in the house, so I take a shower and change into clean clothing. 

When I get out, Baz is in the kitchen. He’s pulled all the pots and pans and he’s making something complicated that involves a simmering pot with sausages, and a ton of veg, which he’s chopping into neat, even slices.

I pull up a stool at the breakfast bar and stare at him. 

He ignores me, at first. But then he finishes his carrot-chopping and looks up. “Mordelia.”

“How are you?”

He looks off into the distance, which is difficult, as there’s not much more flat there to stare off into. (The house really is nicer. I bet I could get them to buy me a bed for one of the upstairs bedrooms, too. No more couch.)

“I’m fine,” he says, pulling celery out of the refrigerator.

I get off the stool and go to the refrigerator for a Coke. Baz didn’t open the windows when he started cooking. The flat’s getting hot. 

“You’re not fine,” I say, sitting back on the stool. 

He raises one eyebrow, and then looks back down at his chopping. He chops the celery, and then a small onion, and then he dumps them into a pan with butter and the carrot and starts stirring. 

Then he turns back to me and picks up a tumbler of blood. “Fine. I’m not fine.”

“Okay,” I say. I look at the pan. I can’t tell what he’s making. Maybe he doesn’t know; maybe he just started chopping things. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really,” he says.

“He doesn’t hate the house,” I say. “He told me so.”

Baz slams the cutting board into the sink and starts washing it. “So what, he hates me? Is that any better?”

“He doesn’t hate you, and you know that.” (Sometimes I think my little brother throws fewer temper tantrums than my older brother. Must be the Pitch coming out.)

Baz sighs and turns away from the sink. “Don’t fall in love with a Chosen One, Mordelia. It’s not worth it.”

Watford doesn’t have any Chosen Ones anymore, and good thing, too, but that’s not the point of this conversation and I’m not going to let Baz distract me. 

I take another sip of my Coke and push away the bit of my brain that’s telling me I’ll never see Baz again if I don’t have Simon-sitting as an excuse. “Look, if I give you an idea, do you promise I’ll still get to see you?”

Baz over at me. His face is blank but I’m pretty sure he’s confused… maybe. Father has taught him well in the school of unreadable expressions.

“You’re my sister, Mordelia,” he says. “Of course you’ll still see me.”

I stare at him. He’s wrong. I see how often he visits Mum and Father and my younger sisters and brother. 

But maybe I’m different. I’d really like to be different. 

And Simon needs this.

“Fine,” I say. “I think I have a solution to Simon’s wings.”

Baz’s face relaxes and he shakes his head. “I think I know what you’re going to suggest,” he says. “I’ve already tried to get him to have Dr. Wellbelove remove them — we consulted with him right after Simon got the wings, even. Dr. Bunce insisted. But he won’t have them cut off. I don’t know why. I think he’s superstitious about it.”

“Not _medically_ ,” I say. “Give me some credit.”

I jump off the stool and run over to my bag, which is still by the couch with my laundry spilling out. Baz’s old textbook on object-linked magics is on top. “Like this,” I say, opening the book to the page on extending charms with enchanted objects and sliding it across the breakfast bar to Baz. “I think this might work.”

Baz looks back at the pans on the stove, and then takes the book. He studies it before looking up at me.

I try to sit quietly, drink my Coke… but I can’t. I need to know what Baz thinks.

“So? Do you think it’ll work?”

Baz turns over another page, and then looks up at me. “Maybe.”

When Simon finally comes in from his run, he’s sweaty and disgusting and his wings are just starting to show. It’s so late it’s nearly dark out, though, so the Normals probably weren’t noticed. He must have run halfway across the city. 

He sees me looking at his wings, which are just starting to trace in. I can see through them if I try to focus on them. “Sometimes they show up faster when I’m sweating a lot,” he says. “I don’t know why.”

“There’s food,” Baz says, waving at the stove. He’s deep in the book on object-linked magic that I borrowed from Priya’s dad.

Baz got wrapped up in the books, so I dumped all of his pots-in-progress into one big pot and added tomatoes to make pasta sauce. It’s weird but edible, which means Simon will probably love it. 

Simon takes a shower, and then serves himself an enormous bowl of pasta with sauce and cheese. Baz is reading, not eating. Simon doesn’t ask him to come to the table.

Nobody brings up the house.

* * *

Working out all of the specifics about the spells and the objects takes three more weeks, during which Simon and Baz don’t mention the house at all.

Baz has been testing the objects on Simon in his sleep. Mostly because he doesn’t want to tell Simon what’s going on. Me, I think that’s where he went wrong before, not telling Simon about the house. But Baz seems pretty sure he’s right.

Personally, I think Baz should test one of the objects on himself. He still won’t eat in restaurants — that whole fang thing. I don’t know much about business etiquette but I’m pretty sure sitting at a table sipping at a drink and never, ever eating isn’t the right thing to do. And I’m betting the same spell that hides Simon's wings would hide his fangs from any Normals.

But he refuses, so sleeping-Simon tests it is.

* * *

Simon gets home late that evening. He must be surveying again, because he’s covered in mud and dead leaves and sweat.

Baz is too excited to let him shower, though. “Snow! You’re home!”

“His wings aren’t showing,” I say, pointing to Simon’s back.

Simon looks over his shoulder and flexes one of his shoulders. No wings. Nothing moves except his back. “Yeah, the charm held just fine. Why?”

“Because we have something for you,” Baz says. He hands Simon a normal door key and watches him closely.

Nothing happens, because Simon’s wings are hidden.

Simon studies the key for a moment, and then looks up at Baz. “You bought another house?”

“No,” Baz says. “No, the key is the thing we have for you.”

Simon turns the key over in his hand. “Why?”

I’m tired of Baz dragging this out — Simon’s wings won’t reappear for at least another hour, and I want curry. “It’s object-linked magic,” I say. “It _should_ make your wings and tail disappear when it’s in close contact to you. Only we can’t test it, because _someone_ couldn’t wait until morning to give it to you.”

Simon looks up at Baz. “Really?”

“It was Mordelia’s idea,” Baz says. “Object-linked magic.”

Simon looks down at the key, and then at Baz. “Like the tape recorder.”

Baz’s face goes blank. “Yes.”

They’re staring at one another, and all the happiness Baz had from solving the problem of the key seems to have faded away. Obviously something I don’t know — there are all these landmines in their past, and sometimes they trip over them.

“What tape recorder?” I ask.

“It’s not important,” Simon says, putting the key down and raising his hand to Baz’s face. “None of us are those people now.”

“I’m still allowed regrets,” Baz says. But he lets Simon pull him into a long kiss.

I watch them for a moment and then realize that they’re not going to tell me about the tape recorder — or stop snogging — unless I remind them I’m here. “Okay, two things,” I say. “One, get a room. Two, what bloody tape recorder?”

“Not important,” Simon says, again. “Look, I hate to break this up, but I’m starving and I smell terrible, so can I take a shower and Mordelia, can you go get curry?”

I take the notes he’s handing over and leave the flat before I can see anything else.

I’m expecting Simon’s wings to come back after dinner, but we end up waiting and watching Simon’s back for another two hours before they finally shimmer into visibility again.

And then they shimmer away again, the moment Simon touches the key. _It worked_.

Simon stands in front of the mirror until nearly midnight, touching the key and watching his wings appear and disappear again. Baz is just as interested, but he’s making Simon run tests — does the key work in his pocket? (It does.) Does it work in his pocket if he’s added it to his keyring? (Yes.)

When I go to bed (couch), they’re still standing in front of the mirror.

And Simon still hasn’t asked what the key opens.

* * *

The next morning is Saturday, and Baz wakes us all up early to drive out to the house.

It’s a sunny day, again. Simon spends most of the drive talking about how _not there_ his wings are, and picking up and putting down the key to make his wings come out in traffic. (Baz is pretending to not be amused, but I’m pretty sure he is.)

When we get to the house, it’s exactly the same — forlorn, tumble-down. Hopefully not entirely full of dry-rot and damp. But the outside is a garden, and the air smells like sunshine and growing things and new beginnings. 

Simon jumps up the broken front stairs. He pulls his keyring from his pocket.

He spends a moment looking for the right key, and his hands must lose contact with the charmed key for a moment, because his wings and his tail shimmer into view for a moment, and then shimmer away again as he finds the right key and unlocks the door.

“I told you we should have used a watch,” I mutter to Baz.

“It’s fine,” Baz says. “We live in the middle of nowhere. That’s the whole point. Nobody here will notice.”

“Simon must have to unlock his office door,” I say. “Or gates. Or other things.”

Simon bounds back down the stairs, just missing a bit where the bricks have tumbled over into the garden. “Can we go inside?”

“Of course we can,” Baz says, wrapping an arm around Simon’s shoulders and kissing him on the temple.

Personally, I’m imagining Simon’s wings shimmering into existence at the front door of his offices. 

But we can fix that later. Right now, it’s time to go inside and start tearing paper off the walls, and evaluating which bedroom has the best views.

I’m claiming my guest bedroom early.


End file.
